Harry, Ron & Hermione's American Adventure (working title)
by GriffsSayWhat
Summary: The year after Hogwarts (2 years post wizard war) and the trio heads off to America for college & to study American muggles on assignment from the Ministry of Magic. After making friends with local teenagers and meeting a mysterious stranger who unknowingly can do magic, they learn there's even more to the magical world than they knew! (chapters are titled by the POV character)
1. Chapter 1 Harry

Chapter 1: Harry

Harry stared at the red hair of the girl sitting in front of him in class. It was a nice auburn red but not quite the same as the bright, beautiful fiery red of Ginny, his fiance, and he couldn't help but let his mind wander to thoughts of her every time he sat in this class. It was only a few weeks into the semester and Harry was just starting to feel settled in America. As the professor droned on about American colonies and settlement, Harry let his mind wander even more, thinking back to the events that led him here...

"I'm sorry Harry, but that's the final decision of the Ministry," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister for Magic, in his booming voice. "We just don't feel an 19 year old wizard, whatever life experiences he or she may have, is really fully qualified to join the ministry. Unless you have plans to overthrow me as minister?" he added with a boisterous laugh and a wink.

"No sir, of course not! I like the simple life, you know me" answered Harry, smiling, though he was a bit annoyed by the answer.

"Ha! Well, here's the deal; you and Hermione can join the ministry, after a few more years of study and training. Being a top ministry official isn't all wand waving, you know. We'd really like to expand our international magical cooperation division and we've been thinking of sending a few wizards abroad to the United States to study American muggle culture and lifestyle. What do you think?" asked Kingsley.

Harry knew this wasn't a demand, but a real request and that Kingsley truly did want him to join the ministry soon, and work his way up just like every other wizard. Harry felt he had plenty of "life experience" to go on, but he couldn't argue with Minister Shacklebolt. After some discussion Harry and Hermione agreed to go to a university in America with one stipulation- Hermione's boyfriend Ron had to be allowed to come with them.

Ron wasn't accepted into the muggle university, but he decided to come along for the ride anyway and moved the States with the other two, taking classes at the local community college and working part time in a muggle coffee shop, The Green Griffin. The three of them shared an apartment together near campus and were meant to live as muggles as much as possible, something Ron often had trouble with having never lived as a muggle before.

Harry was studying muggle American history and government, while Hermione was studying muggle law and business. The ministry had helped them apply to the University of Washington (not hard, since they both had top marks in school), register for classes and get an apartment. They were also each given a muggle bank account and driver's licenses, although Hermione was pretty nervous about driving a car. Kingsley had even personally accompanied them to the muggle airport in London and sent them off with a hearty "best wishes" as the three of them jetted off to Seattle in August to settle in for their American muggle adventure.

Ron had been ecstatic the whole plane ride, marveling at everything from the drinks carts to the tiny bathroom and wondering outloud and often (much to the annoyance of Harry and Hermione) "how does it stay up in the air?"

"Hello? Anyone there?" the redhead in front of Harry had turned around and was trying to get his attention.

He snapped out of his train of thought, "Hello, sorry I kind of zoned out there during the lecture!"

"It's okay," said the redhead "the professor just directed us to form groups of three and discuss the article we were supposed to read for today. We have two and you looked alone so we thought you might like to join us." she explained, indicating the guy sitting next to her, who had also turned around to look at Harry.

Harry glanced at the guy with a start. He was more of a man than a college kid, and was rather large and muscular with dark hair and very tan skin. Harry speculated that he might be of Native American heritage, he looked very similar to Native Americans he had seen in the Muggle movies he had watched at the Dursley's growing up. He looked at least several years too old to be in college.

"Hi I'm Jake and this is Nessie" he said.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Harry, Harry Potter," replied Harry, pleased that they didn't look shocked at his name or stare at his scar like everyone he usually met did. Muggles, and especially American muggles, had no idea who he was, and it was kind of nice to just be normal for a little while.

"Nice to meet you, too! My real name is Renesmee, but everyone just calls me Nessie," Nessie explained brightly, "so, what did you think of the article?"

"Errrrr" Harry said "well to be honest, I kind of forgot to read it."

"No big deal! We can talk about something else! Tell us about yourself, you're from England?" Nessie replied curiously.

"Well yeah," said Harry "I'm from England."

"Cool!" replied Jake "we have another friend from there, but I think he's a little bit older than you" and he glanced at Nessie with a knowing smirk. She rolled her eyes. "So, what's your story? How did you end up here in Seattle?"

"Well," Harry answered "I'm here with my two best friends. My friend Hermione really wanted to go to law school here and learn about American law, so we all applied, two of us got in and we decided to move here together! We thought it would be fun to live abroad for a little while and have an adventure." This was the cover story they had agreed on, keeping it simple so people wouldn't ask a lot of questions.

"How fun! We love adventures, too!" said Nessie "we were talking about going to New York for college, to try out the East Coast life, but both of our families live in Washington and we just wanted to keep close to home so we ended up here!"

Harry noticed her use of the word "we" as Jake reached over to take Nessie's hand and smiled. "Oh, so you guys are dating?"

Nessie nodded and smiled. "Hey, do you want to meet up for lunch after class? We're planning to go to the student union to the food court."

"Sure!" said Harry, "I'm actually meeting my friend Hermione there, too, do you mind if she joins as well?" "Of course, we don't mind," responded Nessie "the more the merrier!"

After class the three of them headed off to the student union together. Nessie and Jake held hands and kept glancing at each other, sometimes Harry thought they were nodding slightly and he found it kind of odd, almost like they were having a conversation without talking. They picked a table and Nessie excused herself to the restroom. While Jake was checking his phone, Harry took his wand out under the table and sent a patronus message to Hermione so she would know where they were sitting.

"So," Harry started awkwardly, "how did you and Nessie meet?"

"Oh, um, we met in school" Jake answered, glancing up from his phone. It sounded like he wasn't telling the whole truth but Harry didn't press the issue. Just then Hermione showed up, plopping her pile of books and the table with a huff.

"I cannot believe how much reading I have to do for this class!" she exclaimed "besides the textbook, we have a full-length novel each week plus articles! Oh, hello…" she paused, looking at Jake, "I'm Hermione Granger, and you are?"

"I'm Jake," he said with an easy grin. He seemed like the kind of guy who was always relaxed and at ease, never taking life too seriously.

"Pleasure," said Hermione, glancing at Harry with her eyebrows raised. He knew she was also thinking just how old Jake looked.

"Oh hey guys!" said Nessie as she walked back from the restroom and sat down next to Jake, "you must be Harry's friend Hermione! I'm Nessie. You guys wouldn't believe what I just saw in the restroom! As I was walking in, a big silver animal ran in and disappeared into one of the stalls! It was kind of like a silver kind of ghost! Like a big silvery deer ghost. I've never seen anything like it!"

Harry and Hermione exchanged shocked glances. Muggles couldn't see patronuses.

"Oh weird," Harry quickly said, he could feel his face turning red and struggled to keep it as normal as possible. "So Jake was just telling me how you guys met," he said at the same time as Hermione said "So how long have you and Jake known each other?" to Renesemee. Everyone laughed and the tension was eased, but Harry knew he and Hermione would have to dig deeper into this later.

"Oh yes, we met in high school," answered Jake, and again Harry has the feeling he wasn't telling the whole story.

"That's nice," said Hermione "here in Seattle then?"

"Oh no, we grew up in a small town called Forks. It's in the Olympic Peninsula, all the way on the other side of the mountain range." said Nessie "Although technically Jake grew up on the Rez, but it's close enough anyways, like 2 seconds away!"

"Fascinating! I'd love to hear all about life in your American small town! It must be so different than living here in Seattle!" inquired Hermione.

Jake looked at her dubiously "Yeah it's fine, pretty boring though. Not like living in England, I'm sure!" he said, trying to change the subject. "Tell us more about that!"

"Oh well, it's probably about the same as living here except we drive on the other side of the road! You know, cinemas, cappuccinos, high school dances, spotted dick"

Jake spat out the soda he was drinking. "Spotted what?" he choked out.

"Spotted dick," answered Hermione dismissively. "It's a dessert, you know like custard and treacle tart."

"We don't have treacle tart here, either" said Nessie "What's it like?"

"What! No treacle tart?! It's my favorite. It's the best! I can't believe you don't have it here!" exclaimed Harry. Then he checked his old broken watch, out of habit.

"It's 1:30" said Hermione "we should probably head out, I need to go to the library before my next class. It was lovely to meet the two of you, hope to see you again soon!"

Hermione got up and Harry followed. "See ya next class" he waved at Jake and Renesemee.

Hermione walked briskly towards the library, Harry doubled his steps to keep up with her while still trying to hitch his bag on his shoulder. "Well that was interesting," she said.

"Interesting? She saw my patronus! She saw it Hermione! And you know as well as I do that regular muggles cannot see patronuses. Do you think she's a witch? Maybe she's a witch and he's not a wizard so she didn't want to talk about it in front of him?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "I doubt it Harry. If she was a witch she would know what a patronus is, and wouldn't have brought it up at all, let alone acted so surprised! Besides, according to the American Wizards Act of 1940, all witches and wizards have to be registered as such with the Magical Congress of the United States, and I checked the registry before we moved here and there are definitely no witches named Renesmee in the Pacific Northwest!" she concluded with finality, leaving Harry in shock, again, at how much research Hermione had done on any given subject.

Harry raised his eyebrows, "So how many witches and wizards are in this area?" he asked casually. He was secretly hoping to meet up with some American wizards and maybe start a pickup game of quidditch one day.

Hermione looked at him knowingly. "A fair few, and the name of their hometown sounds familiar so I think there is at least one in Forks. But, remember Harry we're supposed to be keeping a low profile here! No, she's definitely not a witch, but there is something there, some reason she could see it..." she trailed off in thought, "well, I'm off-"

"To the library!" Harry finished for her with a smirk, "Alright, see you at home later!"


	2. Chapter 2- Harry

After their afternoon classes, Harry and Hermione headed back to their apartment. Harry thought it was a pretty nice place with a rather large living room, two bedrooms (Ron and Hermione shared) and, much to Ron's delight, a television with cable. Ron had never watched television and found it to be completely the kitchen was an odd assortment of cooking supplies and potions ingredients, with a rather large caldron in the corner for emergency potion making. Harry and Ron kept their racing brooms in the corner of the living room across from the TV, just in bookshelf was full of Hermione's books from Hogwarts as well as some muggle , it was a rather cozy place but Harry knew if a muggle ever came to call, they might find some of the decor a bit odd!

"So how was school today?" Ron asked with a smirk. "Learn anything useful?" They were eating dinner later that night, Ron's newly discovered favorite muggle food- pepperoni pizza with a side of garlic knots.

"Yes actually," replied Hermione "and we made friends, too!"

Ron raised his eyebrows in surprise "Really? Muggle friends? Tell me all about it! What were they like? Did they have felly tones they were always looking at like all those muggles in London? Do they own guns and wear cowboy hats?"

"Seriously Ron, they're called telephones, get it right. And the portable ones are called cell phones. And yes, they had them, all muggles do it seems like!" said Harry. "And of course, they didn't wear cowboy hats, we're in Seattle, not a cow ranch. But there was something odd about these two. They were muggles as far as we could tell, but the girl, Nessie, could see my patronous!"

"Really? Wow! What are the odds you would randomly come across someone who could see a patronous! Why do you think she could? Do you think she's a witch?" Ron asked excitedly.

"No, Harry and I discussed this and did some research and there's no witches with her name!" answered Hermione while she picked the pepperoni off her pizza. "I guess it doesn't really matter anyways, we're supposed to be focusing on blending in as muggles so we can learn about Americans! Besides, Harry really shouldn't have used his wand to send the patronous in front of muggles in the first place! Maybe we should get some of those cell phones all the muggles have."

Ron nodded in agreement and returned to his pizza. He had a look on his face like he was bursting to say something.

"What is it Ron?" asked Harry.

"I met a wizard at work today!" he exclaimed. "I was just minding my business, making a latte and I looked over and this guy was reading a book called 'Quiddich Through the Ages: Volume 2, North America'."

Hermione eyed him suspiciously "Did you talk to him?"

"Well kind of," Ron answered "I had to in order to take his coffee order, didn't I?"

"You know what I mean, Ron"

"OK, ok, yes I talked to him! Are you happy? I found out some stuff about a quidditch meetup nearby and a bar for wizards. You won't believe what it's called: The Leaky Caldron! Just like the one in London!" said Ron. "And they're having a big party there on Halloween! I think we should go, don't you? It sounds like fun anyway!"

"Oh! I didn't realize the was more than one!" said Harry "That sounds wicked, let's go!"

"I don't know guys, we're really not supposed to be doing that sort of thing" Hermione reminded them.

"Oh c'mon Hermione, it'll be fun! Besides, what's the worst that can happen?" said Ron.

"Hmmm, famous last words! Okay, I'll think about. Meanwhile, let's go get our new cell phones tonight!" said Hermione.

The next day Harry and Hermione drove off to class while Ron headed into the Green Griffin for work. Hermione was playing with her new cell phone while Harry drove. She was especially excited about the texting feature and kept sending Harry and Ron text messages, using as many emojis as she could make work in each one.

"So I was wondering," Harry started "how come these cell phones work around us, with us being magical and such? I remember a few years ago you said muggle technology didn't work around wizards."

"Oh yeah, well that's only true when there is a lot of wizards in one place, like Hogwarts, or Diagon Alley, or if there is a very powerful spell happening. Like when you get really angry and the lights flicker. But if it's just one or a few of us the magic doesn't affect the muggle technology." Hermione explained.

"Oh. I guess I should have thought of that from living with the Dursleys. When I was home for the summer holidays all their electronics still worked just fine, I just never really thought it was weird before now!" said Harry.

He parked the car in the student lot and they headed onto campus. Harry wondered if they would see their new friends again today, although he didn't have his American History class again until tomorrow, he doubted it. Just then he saw the huge outline of a man's body walking toward him holding hands with a slender redhead. No doubt it was Jake and Nessie.

"Hey Jake!" Harry called out, waving them over.

Harry and Hermione waited while Jake and Nessie walked up, smiling and waving good morning. "Hey guys, how's it going?" said Jacob.

"Excellent!" replied Harry, "we've just set up our new cell phones last night!"

"How was your night?" Hermione added politely.

Jake and Nessie exchanged glances. "You'll never believe what happened!" exclaimed Nessie. "We were out in the woods, hunt…. errrr, hiking and we saw this boy with a stick. He was waving it around and muttering words. At first nothing happened, and then the stick shot sparks out of the end of it! It was like magic! It was like the stick lit up bright like a flashlight!"

Jake rolled his eyes "Well Nessie claims she saw it, but I didn't see it with my own eyes so I'll just have to take her word for it."

"I know what I saw Jake" Nessie said, frowning and crossing her arms over her chest. "The guy was making sparks come out of a stick, and then light. There's no explanation for it that I can think of. You guys believe me, don't you?" she asked, turning to Harry and Hermione.

Harry didn't know how to answer. There was a guy in the woods doing magic. Not very advanced magic from the sounds of it, but still. That was two days in a row that Nessie had seen someone doing magic. He frowned and then realized she was staring at him waiting for him to answer. "Yeah sure, of course. We believe you." he said, and turned to Hermione.

"What did this man look like? And how far out in the woods were you?" she asked sharply.

Renesmee looked surprised at Hermione's response. "Oh, we were about 3 miles outside of town. I couldn't see his face because his back was turned to us, but he was a little taller than you a little chubby, and had blonde hair." She continued to look at Hermione with a confused expression on her face, but didn't ask any questions.

"Hmmmm," said Hermione, and Harry knew she was thinking about the wizard registry and trying to match the description up to one of the wizards on it. "Well, maybe it was just a torch?" she asked finally.

"A torch?" asked Jake with a puzzled look "why would someone be in the woods lighting a torch?"

Nessie smirked. "She means flashlight, that's what the Brits call a flashlight, Jake. And I'm sure it wasn't a flashlight, but I guess we'll never know! Probably some sort of kids toy, anyways." she added. "Well, we should get going! Want to meet up for coffee later? I found this great new place nearby called the Green Griffin!"

"Sure!" replied Harry, "our friend Ron works there! See you this afternoon."

"Oh wait," said Nessie, "give me your new cell phone numbers so we can text each other about the timing for this afternoon!"

They all exchanged numbers and then Harry and Hermione headed off to Bio 101 in the science building.

* * *

Later that day Harry and Hermione headed over to the Green Griffin. They wanted to go early to prep Ron before their friends arrived. When they arrived, they found Ron behind the counter of the coffee shop, pretending to wipe down the counter while he talked to a sandy haired man. Harry was pretty sure this was new friend Ron had mentioned. He was dressed oddly, like a wizard who was trying to dress like a muggle but just couldn't quite get it right, in plaid pajama pants and a bright yellow polo shirt.

"Hey guys!" said Ron as they walked up, pausing to give Hermione a quick hello kiss over the counter, "this is my new friend Ryan, the guy I was telling you about!"

"Nice to meet you," said Harry, reaching out his hand to shake Ryans.

"You, too, man! Ron here tells me you're an excellent seeker!" Ryan said with excitement, leaning in close so the muggles wouldn't hear. "You'll have to join us for our quidditch pick-up game sometime!"

Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. "You guys are unbelievable!" she commented.

Ryan looked between them, confused.

"Don't mind her," Harry said, "she's just upset because we're supposed to be keeping a low profile and pretend to be muggles. Ryan, are you from Seattle?"

"Yup! Just moved back. I graduated from Ilvermorny this past spring and I'm back living with my parents for a little while," he explained. "They actually run a quidditch supply shop here in Seattle! Have you guys ever played water quidditch? It's totally epic!"

Harry had never played water quiddich, but before he could answer Hermione cut in.

"You went to Ilvormorny?" she asked calmly. Although Harry could tell she was dying for more information. "You'll have to tell us all about it! I'm fascinated to learn about the different schools of magic" she squealed, her calm façade breaking.

"Oh Hermione," said Ron jokingly, "I thought we weren't supposed to be talking about magic?"

"I guess you're right. This will have to wait until later anyways, I see our friends from school coming in" "Hermione said. "Our muggle friends," she added, giving them all pointed looks as Jake and Renesseme walked up.

"Hey everyone!" said Nessie. "Hermione you look a little outnumbered at the moment!"

"Yeah, too many wands" joked Hermione. Nessie, Jake and Ryan laughed while Ron and Harry stared at her in shock. "Well let's get some coffees then!"

They passed the afternoon easily, talking and laughing and drinking too much coffee. Finally around 5:30 Jake announced he really had to leave to they could go home and start making dinner.

Ron had to work late, so they would meet him at home that night. As Harry and Hermione started to leave, Ryan grabbed Harry's arm. Harry whirled around defensively, automatically put on edge by being grabbed.

"You know your friends aren't no-maj, right?" Ryan said.

"What do you mean?" asked Harry, shifting uncomfortably, as he and Hermione had already been suspicious of this.

"I have a sense of magical detection," Ryan explained. "It's how I knew Ron was a wizard and I could talk to him freely. I can tell if someone is magical or has magic around them and your friends are definitely something with magic. They aren't a witch and a wizard, but beyond that I can't tell exactly what it is. It's subtle, but it's there."

Hermione looked shocked. "Thank you for telling us" she said after a minute. "We'll keep our eyes open." And with that, they headed home.


End file.
